Thick as Thieves

by Megan Whalen Turner

  Each time I bobbed up to make it a little easier to catch a breath, the current of the river gently moved me downstream. The Attolian, impervious to the current because of his greater weight, finally took me by the arm and towed me toward the shore.

  We made an uncomfortable progress to the riverbank. My feet trailed behind me, and my head went down into the water. In order to breathe, I hung around his neck until we reached a spot where we could scramble out of the water. I had an easier time than the Attolian, who made several attempts on the muddy slope before he gave up and stood in the waist-deep water to unbuckle his armor and sword and pass them up to me on the bank.

  Once he’d pulled himself up, we both turned again to watch the Anet’s Dream. Having burned through its anchor lines, it had begun to float downstream. All around it, smaller boats were swarming, their boatmen striving to keep the burning wreck from drifting down onto any other ship. Already another boat was on fire and its crew was abandoning it, too. Some of them could be seen, black figures against the flames, as they climbed down into smaller boats. Some were jumping directly into the water. As we watched, another boat’s rigging was suddenly engulfed.

  “Well,” said the Attolian, “that is all of my king’s money gone.”

  My pride was still stinging, and I asked him, “You didn’t get your purse?” He’d certainly made haste to get his armor out of our bags.

  “It fell off in the river,” he said.

  I sighed to myself. What sort of idiot can’t keep his purse tied to his belt? I declined to consider the obvious answer—one with a man clinging to him like a monkey in the water.

  “Our clothes, too,” he said morosely.

  He’d had a bundle of clothes suitable for me to change into once we were away from prying eyes—anyone who would have noticed a slave walking aboard the ship and a free man walking off. If the clothes weren’t burned, they were on their way to the bottom of the river with the Attolian’s purse.

  I reached for my own purse and found it just where it should be—stupidly revealing its existence to the Attolian.

  “Do you have enough for a night at an inn?” he asked.

  Concealing my reluctance, I untied the purse and gave it to him. “There’s not much there,” I said.

  “We have your chain,” said the Attolian, pointing to the gold around my neck.

  My slave chain was solid gold, with heavy links in the distinctive double-cuff pattern that distinguished it from any free man’s jewelry. Not quite long enough to pull over my head, it had a plate hanging from it, also gold, stamped with my master’s seal to identify me. Of course I had known I would take it off at some point, but I was suddenly, perversely, unwilling to give it up.

  “Only my master may remove it,” I said.

  “He isn’t going to know. I thought you would want to be rid of it.”

  I’d thought I would, too, but now that the moment had arrived, I didn’t want to hand it over to the Attolian as I had handed over my purse. I suppose I felt that it belonged to me just as much as I had ever belonged to my master. I hesitated, searching for some justification to keep the chain, and said, “No one will give you money for the chain unless you can prove with your own copy of the seal on it that you are my owner. Removing the chain from another man’s slave is a crime.”

  “More so than stealing him?” the Attolian asked, incredulously.

  “Yes,” I said curtly, dangerously close to being rude. Other shipwrecked sailors, from our own ship and from the others that were burning, were now nearby on the bank. The Attolian needed to stop talking. This was not the place or time to explain that stealing a man’s property was one crime and freeing his slave was another, only the second punishable by death. The first was theft, while the other was disturbing the order of the empire. Slaves are slaves until freed by their masters. I was a runaway slave, not a free man.

  Under my breath, I said, “If the chain is found in your possession—if you try to sell the links—you’ll be arrested.”

  “Then we should pitch it in the river,” said the Attolian, shifting his bulk until he blocked me from the view of the nearest group of men. He was not completely thickheaded, but he still didn’t understand. I was clearly dressed as a slave, and until I found a change of clothes, whoever saw me would wonder where my chain was. Also, I still hoped to keep some part of the chain’s value if I could.

  “That would be a waste of good gold,” I said.

  I thought he might pull the chain off, and I braced myself, but he just shook his head, bemused.

  “Well, perhaps we have enough to secure a room for the night.” He hefted my small purse in his hand. “Let’s go get dry and see what we think of next.”

  He bent to pick up his armor, but I stopped him. “Better leave it for me.”

  “It’s only the breast and backplate and the sword,” he said. “I left the rest aboard ship.”

  “No matter,” I said. “Better I carry it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Again I played the part of a trusted slave making arrangements for my master. I found a pleasant-looking inn and left the Attolian out in the street while I went in to present my still-soaking person to the innkeeper and spin him a story of our woebegone state. We’d lost our traveling companions—all that was left of our guards was the armor I was carrying. Did he have room for myself and my master, the wealthy son of a foreign merchant family? I regretted that my master’s purse was lost, but he would apply for funds in the morning, trading on his good name with men who knew his father. And if our lost guards appeared, undrowned, we would need accommodations for them as well.

  The innkeeper, impressed by the gold around my neck and more than happy to believe my story, agreed to open up his finest room, upstairs where the breeze blew in from the doorway overlooking a private courtyard.

  I think the Attolian was surprised by the warmth of our reception.

  “They know I am Attolian?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I didn’t think . . .” I didn’t think he could carry off an impersonation of a Mede for very long.

  “They are very hospitable,” he said.

  “Hospitality is much the same in many countries—and they think you are rich.”

  “Ah.” That made sense to him. Money is the same from country to country, too.

  When we had dried off and changed into the clean clothes the innkeeper had loaned us, the Attolian wanted to go out. He was eager to exercise his unexpected freedom. I didn’t dare try to dissuade him, very aware that I had been disobedient over the matter of the chain at the river, so I followed him back downstairs, where he wanted me to ask the innkeeper for directions to the part of town where he might find an open wineshop that would serve a late supper.

  There was no way to avoid relaying the question, but I added a request for something in our room. The innkeeper, thank the gods, waved toward the people sitting at tables and chairs in the open courtyard behind him. The implication was too obvious for even the Attolian to miss. Not only could we eat there, it would be impolite to refuse.

  Bowing to good sense, the Attolian picked a table while the innkeeper bustled away, and gestured to me to sit. I shook my head, hoping he would realize how odd it would look to the other patrons. He looked back at me, puzzled, and opened his mouth. It would draw more attention if we stood talking about it, so I quickly took the stool across from him. A servant brought out two bowls of stewed lamb and a wine bottle with two cups, raising his eyebrows as he served me.

  I ate quickly. The Attolian didn’t. He looked idly around at the other occupants of the inn enjoying the night air. I’d made up the story I had and chosen the inn with care in order to avoid anyone from the Anet’s Dream. They would be seeking shelter in a poorer part of town, but several men nearby were off boats that had been damaged and were complaining about the irresponsibility of the captain, blaming him for the fire.

  Two more men came, asking the innkeeper for wine before sitting at a nearby table.
They, too, were talking about the fire on the river. It was only a matter of time, though, before they started discussing other events. The story of my master’s murder at the hand of his secretary had to have preceded us. That sort of news travels faster than horses, faster than boats. The messengers of the gods carry rumors through the sky the way bees carry pollen and drop them from their wings onto the earth below.

  I wasn’t sure that the Attolian could understand the conversations around us, but I wasn’t sure he couldn’t, either. I debated excusing myself—he’d let me go if I said I was returning to our room—and then fleeing the inn, but there was every chance someone would notice me leaving and alert my “master.” In addition, the Attolian had all my money. If I waited until he was asleep, I would have my purse back and the coin in it would buy a set of clothes suitable for a free man. I could leave in the very early morning, telling the innkeeper I was running errands. Unlike trying to sneak away in the night, leaving in the morning would be unexceptional. No one had any cause to doubt my good conduct, and the boat fire would offer me a perfect excuse to be buying more clothes for my master.

  The town was at an intersection of one of the emperor’s trade roads and the river, which is why it had been a planned stop on our captain’s route. It offered a much better chance for my escape than any of the sad collections of mud houses I’d seen from our boat over the last few days. I could thank the gods that the boat hadn’t caught fire next to one of those. Once I was dressed as a free man, I could break the links of the slave chain and go to one of the caravan sites on either side of the river to offer my services as a scribe and record keeper. Invisible in the crowd of a caravan, I could make my way out of the empire and only then convert the gold in my chain to coin to live very comfortably. I just wished the Attolian would leave the men talking in the courtyard and go to bed. He didn’t seem tired at all.

  Just as I was at my wit’s end, a man entered the courtyard, none other than the wine merchant I had followed around Ianna-Ir. His trade must have brought him upriver.

  “Master,” I said in a whisper.

  “You don’t—”

  Gods, I asked, how stupid was he?

  “Master,” I repeated more firmly, and he remembered where we were and the story I had given the innkeeper.

  I leaned close to him and whispered, “There is a man here who will know me if he sees me. He has done business with Nahuseresh.”

  He began to turn his head to look, and I hastily cleared my throat to stop him.

  “You are certain?”

  “I am certain,” I said. “We should go up to the room.”

  He nodded and hastily finished the last bites of his stewed lamb. When the wine merchant’s back was turned, I signaled the Attolian. Then he stood and walked to the stairs while I kept his bulk between me and the wine merchant, should he look our way.

  Once safely in our room, I waited, hiding my impatience, for the Attolian to lie down. It seemed like hours that he sat on the small stool by the bed, lost in his thoughts—or whatever he had in his head that approximated thoughts. Finally, he did lie down, but each time I checked, his eyes were still open. The third time I checked, he looked back at me, curious, and I hastily closed my own eyes.

  I woke with a start to find the room full of sunlight. It was not only morning, it was late morning, and the Attolian was gone. I leapt up and looked all around me while berating myself. I’d thought the Attolian was thickheaded the night before, but I was so much more stupid. I couldn’t imagine what had come over me, not just to oversleep, but to oversleep when the Attolian was up and moving around. I had already grown spoiled and blamed the Attolian for it. I could very clearly imagine what my master would have done if such a thing had happened while I was with him.

  Wherever the Attolian had gone, he’d taken my purse, and gods alone knew what he might be doing to give us away to the local population. I combed my fingers through my hair and straightened my shift, then hastily headed downstairs to speak to the innkeeper. My stomach sank when I saw his expression; we were no longer honored guests, that much was clear.

  “The guard,” he said, emphasizing the word, “has gone to the caravan site on the west side of the river to see about a job that will carry both of you back to your master in Zabrisa,” he said in a stony voice. “Now that the goods whose transport you were overseeing have been lost.” He sounded quite vengeful. He was probably pleased to think of me facing a disappointed master with my invented failure to explain.

  I bowed and thanked him. I would need to leave immediately, even without my money. We had been memorable, the Attolian and I, and the Attolian had offended the innkeeper by making him feel a fool for believing my story about a rich merchant. The innkeeper would jump at the chance to describe us to any slave catchers who looked for me here, and for all I knew, they would look for me here when they had no success finding me downriver. I sent up a quick prayer that the emperor would be satisfied to have me just disappear and turned to go back up to the room. I hadn’t thought to look to see if the Attolian had left his armor. If he had, I intended to sell it.

  “Ahem,” said the innkeeper, and I turned back. The innkeeper pointedly presented me with my clothing, washed and dried after my immersion in the river. He wanted back the shift he’d generously offered me the day before. I smiled obsequiously, taking the bundle, and hurried upstairs to change. The armor was gone.

  Once dressed in my own clothes, I went right back down to find the innkeeper standing with his arms crossed and a sour look on his face, speaking to the Attolian. The Attolian, dressed in his armor, had a pack at his feet and a self-satisfied expression on his face.

  “Our innkeeper is our long-lost brother no more,” he whispered to me in Attolian.

  “It has come to him that you are not the son of a wealthy merchant,” I answered in the same language.

  “Well, so long as he doesn’t tell anyone that I have signed on as a guard for a caravan headed toward Zabrisa, I don’t care if he is my dear brother or not.”

  I didn’t wince. The innkeeper—who didn’t need to speak Attolian to understand what he’d just heard—already knew we were headed to Zabrisa, after all. I nodded serenely instead. At least the Attolian was going to Zabrisa, not I.

  “I’ve paid our bills,” said the Attolian. He bowed to the innkeeper, who bowed stiffly back. The worked-gold ring of Miras was gone from the Attolian’s finger. If he had used it to pay our fee, he had been cheated, and no clearer trail could have been left of our presence here. The Medes do not worship Miras, and anyone who saw the ring would know it came from an Attolian. Outside, we headed toward the river, but after only a short distance, the Attolian pulled me aside into a narrower street and led the way between houses until we were alone.

  “Take off your shift,” he said as he lifted the pack I’d been carrying from my back. He opened the pack to pull out a smaller bundle and handed it to me. Inside were a free man’s clothes. “Quickly,” he said.

  I kicked off my sandals and pulled on the loose trousers, the fabric against my legs making me shiver. Then I removed my shift and pulled on the sleeved shirt he’d given me—anyone observing this moment would know my secret—and then the moment passed. I was dressed. My hair was a little short, but no matter. So long as I had the clothes and the bearing of a free man, no one would give me a second look. I still had no money, though, and I laced the shirt tightly closed over the slave chain before the Attolian could suggest again that we get rid of it. He, meanwhile, had folded my shift around a rock and tucked it somewhat awkwardly under his breastplate. When he saw I was ready, he gestured to me to walk at his side, and we proceeded to the bridge over the Ianna.

  The bridge was provided by the emperor to carry his road across the river, north toward Menle and then west to Zabrisa. It was built of white stone in arches that grew higher toward the center, but they were not high enough to let through the masts of the larger riverboats. The center part of the bridge was wooden and could be
raised to allow those boats to pass through. The drawbridge was down when we arrived, but the Attolian dawdled, looking at the blankets spread with cheap merchandise in the shadow of the bridge railing. Trinket sellers with no money for a stall in a marketplace displayed their wares there. The Attolian looked at various armbands as we moved across the bridge, and by the time we’d gotten to the center, the wooden deck had been raised to let a boat through. As we stood waiting, the Attolian smoothly pulled the shift out from under his armor and dropped it into the river without anyone around us the wiser—the thumping of the gearing of the drawbridge and the noise of the riverboat working its way through the narrow opening covered the much smaller splash of the rock covered in cloth hitting the water.

  Once on the far side of the river, we went about halfway to the caravan site and then again turned off the imperial road into the side alleys. I followed, curious but not alarmed, until it seemed that the Attolian had lost his way and was turning back on his path. The Attolian showed no hesitation, only checking the sun before he chose another wrong turn, but I grew more and more anxious. We were heading back east toward the river, and I was afraid that by the time we reached the caravan site, the Attolian would have lost his position as guard. I was counting on that distraction, as well as the crowds at the caravan site, to give me a chance to slip away from him.

  “Master, the West Caravan site is in that direction,” I finally said.

  “We aren’t going to the West Caravan site,” the Attolian replied, and his words were knife-edged. “We aren’t going to Zabrisa, either,” he added, and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. I had been indiscreet. He had seen what I had been thinking.

  “Don’t call me master again,” he warned, and walked on.

  Chastened, I followed him back over the bridge to the east side of the river as he carefully joined a crowd to hide us as well as possible from the watching eyes of the trinket sellers. We threaded our way through the narrow side streets, circling around the inn where we had stayed the night before, lest anyone see us and note our change of direction. The Attolian waved an arm to indicate that I should walk beside him in accordance with my new identity as a free man—and so that he could keep an eye on me. The town of Sherguz had grown more slowly on this side of the river, so there was still empty ground to cross before we reached the high walls of the East Caravan site. Its only gate faced away from us, and its blank walls made it look even more like one of the ziggurats of the capital surrounded by their open plazas.